An Open Letter To Tennessee Electors Of The President - And Response (6)

  • Monday, December 5, 2016

This an open letter to the following people who are Tennessee's presidential electors this year: Joey Jacobs (Brentwood), Beth Scott Clayton Amos (Nashville), Jason Mumpower (Bristol), Susan Mills (Maryville), Liz Holiway (Harriman), Lynne Davis (Lascassas), Tom Lawless (Nashville), Mike Callahan (Monterey), Pat Allen (Clarksville), Shannon Haynes (Alamo), and Drew Daniel (Memphis). 

Ladies and gentlemen please consider the best interest of your country. I would ask you to read Federalist Number 68 carefully before voting. The Founding Fathers intended the Electoral College to stop an unfit man from becoming President. The Constitution they crafted gives us this tool. Conscience demands that we use it. One of the Republican electors for Texas has already resigned rather than vote for Trump. And that was before the China Debacle. 

Donald Trump has no clue about the delicate affairs of the diplomatic world nor is he well versed on U.S. foreign policy. We even have reports that he is is not taking the daily national intelligence briefings. 

However he is using his contacts with foreign leaders to pursue his business dealings over seas. That is what prompted his team to set up the Taiwan call that has upset 40 years of China policy. He has a pending real estate deal in Taiwan. The Trump organization is treading all over the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution by repeatedly asking for consideration of foreign government that benefit his business enterprises. 

The Heritage Foundation Guide to the Constitution had this to say about the Emoluments Clause: 'Similarly, the Framers intended the Emoluments Clause to protect the republican character of American political institutions. "One of the weak sides of republics, among their numerous advantages, is that they afford too easy an inlet to foreign corruption." The Federalist No. 22 (Alexander Hamilton). The delegates at the Constitutional Convention specifically designed the clause as an antidote to potentially corrupting foreign practices of a kind that the Framers had observed during the period of the Confederation. Louis XVI had the custom of presenting expensive gifts to departing ministers who had signed treaties with France, including American diplomats. In 1780, the King gave Arthur Lee a portrait of the King set in diamonds above a gold snuff box; and in 1785, he gave Benjamin Franklin a similar miniature portrait, also set in diamonds. Likewise, the King of Spain presented John Jay (during negotiations with Spain) with the gift of a horse. All these gifts were reported to Congress, which in each case accorded permission to the recipients to accept them. Wary, however, of the possibility that such gestures might unduly influence American officials in their dealings with foreign states, the Framers institutionalized the practice of requiring the consent of Congress before one could accept "any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from...[a] foreign State." ' 

Each passing day he continues to show his corruption and lack of knowledge as to how our system of government is run as well as a general disinterest to learn. 

He has also showed an uneven if not mercurial temperament that does bode well if you value a steady hand on rudder of our ship of state. There is a movement calling itself the Hamilton Electors asking other electors to choose someone else. Perhaps a compromised candidate like Kasich. I would argue whether agree with Hillary Clinton's politics or not, she is the most qualified candidate since Herbert Walker Bush. 

Whether you choose another Republican or Clinton, I urge you not to vote for Donald Trump for President. 

R.W. Young  

* * *  

Mr. Young, 

I am sorry your candidate didn't win the election.  I know it stings.  I've been there and have a couple of T-shirts.  But sometimes, in spite of all those participation trophies you may have"won" in the past, you lose and you should learn to lose gracefully.  Trying to intimidate and bully our Electoral College electors to your way of thinking is not nice.  You should be more tolerant of the feelings of the majority of Tennesseans who voted for Donald J. Trump for President. 

That being said, 29 states (and Tennessee is one of them) and the District of Columbia have legal control over how their electors vote in the Electoral College.  In Tennessee's case, this means their electors are bound by state law to cast their vote for the candidate that wins the statewide popular vote. See TN Code 2-15-104(c) below. 

 2015 Tennessee Code
 Title 2 - Elections
 Chapter 15 - Presidential Elections
 § 2-15-104 - Meeting of electors. 

*Universal Citation: *TN Code § 2-15-104 (2015) <http://law.justia.com/citations.html> 

*(a)* The electors shall meet at the seat of government of this state at the time prescribed by the laws of the United States and perform the duties required of them by the laws of the United States. 

*(b)* The governor shall immediately deliver to the electors present a certificate of all the names of the electors. 

*(c)* *(1)* The electors shall cast their ballots in the electoral college for the candidates of the political party which nominated them as electors if both candidates are alive. 

*(2)* If the presidential candidate of the party is dead or both the presidential and vice presidential candidates of the party are dead, the electors may cast their ballots in the electoral college as they see fit. 

*(3)* If the vice presidential candidate of the party is dead, the electors shall cast their ballots in the electoral college for the presidential candidate of the political party which nominated them as electors but may cast their ballots in the electoral college for vice president as they see fit. 

Tenn. Code. Ann. §§ 2-13-303, 2-15-10, 2-15-103, 2-15-104, 2-15-105 

If any elector fails to appear before nine o'clock a.m. (9:00 a.m.), prevailing time, on the day on which electors are to cast their votes for president and vice president, the electors present shall, immediately and in the presence of the governor, elect any resident citizen of the state to fill such vacancy.

Phil Snider 

* * *

You were overwhelming elected by the voters of Tennessee to cast your vote for the candidate that you pledged yourself to support and who received the majority number of votes. 

Had a different candidate received the greater number of votes there would be a different set of electors.   

And I am comfortable that you will do your duty. 

Chris Cole
Signal Mountain 

* * * 

Mr. Young, your post is proof that it didn't take the liberal left long to conjure up a furtive scheme to try to sidestep the constitutionally established method our republic uses to select a president. 

Naming the electors is nothing short of a veiled attempt to bully people who ran as electors for Donald Trump into voting for anyone, as you say, other than who they represented themselves as being pledged to elect. 

This very thing is largely why Trump won, Mr. Young, candidates saying one thing and then doing another. 

Leftist consider themselves the champions of minorities. Not every minority is racial or ethnic. The electoral system keeps a few large states from dominating all of the rest. 

This system has worked for over 200 years without your attempt to undermine it. And I believe it will continue. 

Ralph Miller 

* * *

Right now Hillary Clinton in the counting of votes nationwide is leading by more than two and one half million votes. 

Who should be President? 

Don Worley 

* * *

Mr. Worley, 

You did an excellent job of proving Mr. Trump should be president (albeit I suspect this wasn't the answer you were expecting)  You see it's called math and you unwittingly proved your own point.  Mrs. Clinton leads by 2.5 million votes, or so you claim.  She leads by 3.5 million votes in California alone.  What does this math problem mean?  Mr. Trump leads by over 1 million votes in the other 49 states right?  

Exactly why the electoral college is working as intended.  Better luck next time but this new liberal math has never worked very well just look at test scores. 

Mark Maynor

* * *

Mr. Worley, 

ou are correct, nationally Mrs Clinton had more popular votes in a contest against Mr. Trump that they were not having. They were having a contest to win more electoral votes. 

The election is comparable to a three game series in baseball between the Yankees and the Braves. In game one the Yankees won 11 to 0. Game two the Braves won 1 to 0 and game three the Braves won 1 to 0. Which team won the series? If you count points scored, the Yankees won 11 to 2. While in reality the Braves won 2 games to 1. 

Mark Timon

Mr. Worley,

You did an excellent job of proving Mr. Trump should be president (albeit I suspect this wasn't the answer you were expecting)  You see it's called math and you unwittingly proved your own point.  Mrs. Clinton leads by 2.5 million votes or so you claim.  She leads by 3.5 million votes in California alone.  What does this math problem mean?  Mr. Trump leads by over 1 million votes in the other 49 states right?  Exactly why the electoral college is working as intended.  Better luck next time but this new liberal math has never worked very well just look at test scores.

Mark Maynor
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